just because you can, doesn't mean you always should

[threeplusfire]

The story about Clonaid and the claim of the first clone birth are all over the wires this morning. Didn't we all read enough science fiction stories to know that cloning never ends in happiness? I read "Nine Lives" again yesterday, and it is still a chilling thought.

It's a strange day when I can't even retreat into my sci-fi collection for respite from the world. Back to the wizards I suppose. Even if they do keep me up til odd hours before dawn, whispering.

Comments

Re:

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I find it so sad and terrible, and at the heart, so unbearably damned selfish. It's not about lives, or possibilities. This is about power, and money.

[doctorno.livejournal.com]

I find it so sad and terrible, and at the heart, so unbearably damned selfish

This does open up some interesting discussion, now doesn't it? Ultimately, the very act of having a child naturally is the most self-centered thing anyone can do. Of course, the instant the child is born, the self-centered ideal morphs rather quickly into a life of utter selflessness. Even Madonna was, for a moment in time, struck with the way her baby commanded away her own focus on herself and forced it onto a helpless human.

That said, and to continue what I was leading to above, the conceiving of a child is an act of total selfishness--the drive to carry on one's own name, or bloodline, or stunning good looks, or whatever. Psychologically, most people who choose to have children do so to create a connection to themselves that stretches to the future; ie, to taste immortality. It may not be romantic, but it is very true. Adopting does nothing to satiate that desire; adoption is driven by a need to give back to society, not to oneself.